Server 2016 migration guides are not available yet (26 October 2016). So this post will explore a domain joined physical Server 2012 R2 to Server 2016 upgrade. This is from Data Center to Data Center edition. The 2012 R2 server has the following roles:

First I mounted the image:

Being a Hyper-V host, I live-migrate the production VMs to other Hyper-V hosts. All other VMs are shutdown. Then I run the setup.exe

However, that option is not available – un-clickable. The message at the bottom complains about different Windows Editions. That’s not true. As you can see in the background, a PowerShell command that indicates that this server is running 2012 R2 Data Center Edition 😦

I will proceed here since there’s really no personal files or apps that I need.

When you try to proceed, you get a confirmation message that refers to Windows 10 !!??

This server has a NIC team configured as follows:

There’s a single external vSwitch bound to the NIC team with a vNIC for the parent partition

NIC teaming is not supported during upgrade:

Now breaking the team, means this upgrade cannot be done over an RDP session. To do it remotely you need console/baseboard access. Most modern servers like Dell, HP, and UCS do.

It then proceeds to download the updates:

Again references to Windows 10 in the middle of Server 2016 installation/upgrade